Given the increasing costs and scarcity of petroleum based energy sources and concern over the possible harmful effects of high concentrations of various volatile organic solvents in the environment, there has arisen a need in the coatings industry for coating compositions which contain ever lower concentrations of volatile organic components and which are based to an ever decreasing degree on expensive petroleum based components.
However, previous approaches to meet both of the above challenges generally have involved compromises among desirable coating composition properties such as molecular weight of the principal film forming resin, application viscosity of the composition, low curing temperature, and desirable properties of the cured film such as water resistance, flexibility, hardness, solvent resistance, etc.
It would be desirable to produce coating materials which contain low levels of organic solvents, cure at low temperatures, have low application viscosities, do not generate highly toxic volatile materials upon curing, contain less petroleum based components, and yet cure to produce films having desirable features at least as good as conventional, cured films.